Inspiring Speakers

Sir David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield founded David Chipperfield Architects in 1985. Today the practice comprises five offices in London, Berlin, Milan, Shanghai and Santiago de Compostela. Among the accolades Chipperfield has received are the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, the Praemium Imperiale for Architecture, and the Valedor del Hispanismo. He was selected as the 2023 Laureate of The Pritzker Architecture Prize, in recognition of a lifetime’s work.

His architectural output includes the reconstruction and reinvention of the Neues Museum (Berlin), the Hepworth Wakefield (Wakefield, UK), Museo Jumex (Mexico City), the Saint Louis Art Museum East Building (St Louis), the Royal Academy masterplan (London), the Amorepacific Headquarters (Seoul), the West Bund Museum (Shanghai), the restoration of the Procuratie Vecchie (Venice), and the upcoming extension to the National Archaeological Museum (Athens).

In addition to design work, Chipperfield curated the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2012, under the title ‘Common Ground’. In 2017 he founded Fundación RIA, a private, non-profit entity that works towards meaningful economic, environmental and cultural development in Galicia, Spain.

Glenn D. Lowry

Glenn D. Lowry became the sixth director of The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) in 1995. He has overseen the physical transformation of the Museum’s campus through two building campaigns that have more than doubled the size of MoMA’s galleries, quintupled its endowment, created an education and research center, and inspired a new model for the presentation of modern and contemporary art. Lowry has championed innovation, both onsite and online, to grow MoMA’s annual visitation to nearly 3 million in the galleries and 35 million across moma.org. He expanded the Museum’s curatorial departments, with the addition of Media and Performance, and supported MoMA’s intellectual growth by creating new research programs like Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (CMAP). In 2000, he led the merger of MoMA with the contemporary art center PS1, and in 2015, he worked with Thelma Golden to introduce a joint fellowship program with the Studio Museum in Harlem for rising professionals in the arts. Lowry is a strong advocate of contemporary artists and their work and he has lectured and written extensively in the support of contemporary art, on the role of museums in society, and on other topics related to his research interests. He currently serves on the boards of The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Clark Art Institute, the Art Bridges Foundation and The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, as well as on the advisory boards of the Istanbul Modern and the Mori Art Museum. Lowry is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a resident member of the American Philosophical Society.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Mexican-Canadian media artist creates platforms for public participation by using robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, and telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival, and animatronics, his interactive works are “anti-monuments for people to self-represent.”

He was the first artist to represent Mexico at the 2007 Venice Biennale. His large-scale participatory art installations transform public spaces, creating connective environments for communities. In 2019, he presented “Border Tuner”, designed to interconnect the bordering cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Other works were commissioned for events such as the Millennium Celebrations in Mexico City (1999), the UN World Summit in Lyon (2003), the Winter Olympics in Vancouver (2010), and the pre-opening of the Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi (2015), among others. His works are in collections around the world such as MoMA, Guggenheim, TATE, Reina Sofía, and Hirshhorn. Recent exhibitions include “Unstable Presence,” a mid-career retrospective co-produced by the MAC de Montreal and SFMOMA; “Common Measures,” his first solo exhibition at PACE Gallery ; and “Translation Island,” a 2-km parcours in Abu Dhabi.

Elizabeth Diller

Elizabeth Diller is a partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). Alongside partner Ricardo Scofidio, Diller’s cross-genre work has been distinguished with TIME’s "100 Most Influential People" list and the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship awarded in the field of architecture. She led two cultural works significant to New York: The Shed and the expansion of MoMA. Diller also co-created, -directed and -produced The Mile-Long Opera, an immersive choral work staged on the High Line. Diller is a member of the UN Council on Urban Initiatives and a Professor of Architectural Design at Princeton University.

Yoram Roth

Yoram Roth (born 1968 in Berlin, Germany) is a life-long entrepreneur with a focus on the culture, community, and hospitality sectors. He has lived in New York and Los Angeles for over 20 years, but returned to his hometown in 2007.

Yoram is the Executive Chairman and owner of  Fotografiska Holding AB, founded in Sweden in 2010. Fotografiska is the Contemporary Museum for Photography, Art, and Culture with locations in Stockholm, New York, Berlin, Tallinn, and Shanghai as well as Oslo in the future. Around the core mission of exhibiting leading photographers and artists, Fotografiska is a platform for a growing community with a focus on culture and creativity. It also includes curated retail, academy classes, bar and event spaces, and programming for the Fotografiska community members. Each museum is open late every day, allows visitors to have a drink throughout the building, and features a restaurant with a sustainable offering.

Yoram is also a member of the Board of Directors of  NeueHouse, Inc, the private workspace and cultural home for creators, innovators and thought leaders. With iconic buildings, timeless design, thought-provoking cultural experiences and elevated hospitality, NeueHouse reimagines the ideal environment for creative performance and cultural progress, while building a community of professionals working in the culture industry.

Yoram is the lead investor in two media companies focused on the arts and programming in Berlin and is also owner or investor in several hospitality businesses in Berlin.

Yoram Roth has three sons, and lives in Berlin, Germany.

Ana Brzezińska

Ana is a Polish-French-American curator and producer specializing in AR/MR/VR technologies. From 2022 to 2024, she served as Immersive Curator at the Tribeca Festival, where she curated Tribeca’s first guest immersive art show at Mercer Labs, attracting some 50,000 viewers. Ana also serves as an expert to the European Commission, and has collaborated with Warner Bros., Canal+, Paramount, Yahoo, Digital Catapult, and National Film Board of Canada.

Bjørn Christiansen

SUPERFLEX was founded in 1993 by Jakob Fenger, Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, and Rasmus Rosengren Nielsen. Conceived as an expanded collective, SUPERFLEX has consistently worked with a wide variety of collaborators, from gardeners to engineers to audience members. Engaging with alternative models for the creation of social and economic organisation, works have taken the form of energy systems, beverages, sculptures, copies, hypnosis sessions, infrastructure, paintings, plant nurseries, contracts, and public spaces. Working in and outside the physical location of the exhibition space, SUPERFLEX has been engaged in major public space projects since their award-winning Superkilen opened in 2011. These projects often involve participation, involving the input of local communities, specialists, and children. Taking the idea of collaboration even further, recent works have involved soliciting the participation of other species. SUPERFLEX has been developing a new kind of urbanism that includes the perspectives of plants and animals, aiming to move society towards interspecies living. For SUPERFLEX, the best idea might come from a fish.

Amy Jenkins-Le Guerroué

Amy is Strategic Alliances Director at Ubisoft, a leading producer, publisher and distributor of video games, based in Paris.

With 20 years’ experience in business development, she imagines and implements partnerships “beyond video games” to bring Ubisoft’s brands to wider audiences. Amy works with cultural and educational institutions, audio-visual partners and with Live & Location-Based Entertainment.

In recent months she recently successfully collaborated with the World Arab Institute in Paris, the British Library, the Ashmolean Museum, The Cycladic Arts Museum in Athens, the Chateau de Versailles, the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, the Grand Palais Immersif, as well as ‘878 AD’, an immersive exhibition in Winchester, UK.

Winston Fisher

Winston Fisher is the chief executive officer of AREA15, the world’s first purpose-built immersive entertainment district near the Las Vegas Strip. Since its opening in 2020, AREA15 has welcomed over 13 million visitors and will soon add new immersive destinations, including Universal Destinations & Experiences’ year-round horror attraction, Horror Unleashed.

As CEO, Fisher channels his creativity and ambitious vision into AREA15, a first-of-its-kind venture that represents his passion for innovation and aspirational approach to every project.

Originally from New York, Fisher has extensive experience in real estate and finance. Since 2000, he has been a partner at Fisher Brothers, overseeing financial strategies, property acquisitions, and new developments.

An active civic leader, Fisher serves on boards for organizations such as the Partnership for New York City, the Real Estate Board of New York, and Syracuse University, where he is a Life Trustee. He also co-chairs the New York City Regional Economic Development Council.

Fisher holds a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Syracuse University.

Jake Barton

Jake Barton is Founder of Local Projects, an experience design firm that creates groundbreaking museums and public spaces. Credits include landmark projects like the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, the Legacy Museum, Greenwood Rising Black Wall Street History Center, The Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, StoryCorps and Planet Word, the Museum of Language Arts. Local Projects has won every major award, including the National Design Award, Cannes Lions; Jake's TED Talk has over one million views and he is on Fast Company Magazine’s list of top fifty designers.  Local Projects is currently developing Museums for The United Nations, Motown, The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and the John McCain Library.  Jake designed Sets and Projections for McNeal the Lincoln Center pay starring Robert Downey Jr., and is currently launching a new firm that will develop experiences to catalyze action around the climate crisis, and has earned an Emerson Collective Climate Fellowship.

Barnaby Steel

Barnaby Steel is an artist and creative director of London-based experiential artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast. Barnaby’s art practice centres on the senses enticing audiences into states of expanded perception a space where the boundaries between bodies blur. His work is deeply rooted in scientific observation as a window that allows us to look through and beyond our own experience to understand the complexities of things hidden from the naked eye. His work steps outside the human-centred worldview exploring the threads that weave us into relationship with the more than human world.

Artist Statement
Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) is an experiential artist collective. They believe in the power of stories to tickle senses and shift perceptions. Their work takes people on a multisensory journey to where imagination and information collide.
From coders to poets chemists to ventriloquists brands to institutions they collaborate with specialists in all disciplines. To explore new forms of culture interrogate our relationship with the world around us and leave a glittery slug trail as they journey through the cosmos.
MLF has exhibited internationally at institutions including ACMI, Barbican Centre, YCAM, DDB Seoul, Sundance Film Festival, Factory International, Quartier des Spectacles Montreal, SXSW, Phi Centre and Lisbon Architectural Triennale.

Noura Al-Maashouq

Noura Al-Maashouq is the Director of SAMOCA at Jax - the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art located in the heart of the kingdom’s creative district in Diriyah. Previous roles include Creative Producer of Frieze Studios (Frieze) and overseeing exhibitions, publications, public art, and artist projects at a London-based contemporary gallery. Alongside her career, she served on the board of Art U.K., an educational charity, and led UNICEF’s Next Generation London, a philanthropic incubator raising millions for global humanitarian efforts. Noura is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Courtauld Institute of Art.

About SAMOCA:
SAMOCA at Jax (Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art) was inaugurated by the Museums Commission of the Ministry of Culture in October 2023. As a ‘kunsthalle’ model, SAMOCA presents a dynamic program of temporary exhibitions dedicated to contemporary art – both international and local – alongside a rich community engagement program from public talks, art workshops and events in music / film.

Carla Prat

Carla Prat combines her expertise as a museologist with her passion for creative direction to craft immersive experiences and exhibitions. With a background in art and museology, she has more than fifteen years of experience in the cultural sector.

As a Creative Strategist at ACCIONA Living & Culture, Carla has participated in some of the company’s most transformative projects, including the Sustainability Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, the design of the Real Madrid Museum within the new stadium, and the creation of the most awarded immersive exhibition worldwide, Life and Work of Frida Kahlo.

Before joining ACCIONA Living & Culture in 2019, Carla played key roles in the various museums across different regions. From her work as an academic advisor for the Memory and Tolerance Museum in Mexico City to her contribution as an independent consultant in Latin America, she has demonstrated a rich and diverse background. Additionally, she worked in the curatorial departments of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Carla is also a member of the Board of Directors of the International Committee of Memorial and Human Rights Museums.

Hirokazu Tokuyama

Served as curator at the Kyoto City University of Arts ART GALLERY @KCUA from 2012 prior to joining the Mori Art Museum in April 2016. Curated exhibitions at @KCUA include killing time (2016), a Guido van der Werve solo exhibition; NA (2016), a Yuki Okumura solo exhibition; PHOTOPHOBIA(2014), an Apichatpong Weerasethakul solo exhibition. Curated exhibitions at Mori Art Museum include SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now (2017); Japan in Architecture: Genealogies of Its Transformation (2018); Future and the Arts: AI, Robotics, Cities, Life - How Humanity Will Live Tomorrow (2019); MAM Project 025: Apichatpong Weerasethakul + Hisakado Tsuyoshi (2018); Roppongi Crossing 2019: Connexions (2019); Listen to the Sound of the Earth Turning: Our Wellbeing since the Pandemic (2022); Theaster Gates: Afro-Migei (2024). Tokuyama also serves as visiting professor at Tohoku University of Art & Design.

Jane Alexander  

Jane Alexander, the Chief Digital Information Officer at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), has been a transformative force in integrating cutting-edge digital strategies with art. Over her decade-long tenure, she has established CMA as a leader in digital innovation. Jane initiated the ArtLens Gallery, originally Gallery One, in 2012, revolutionizing visitor engagement through technology. Her strategic foresight continued with the 2019 launch of the Open Access initiative, which released thousands of CMA’s collection images under a Creative Commons Zero license, setting industry benchmarks. During the pandemic, Jane introduced AI-enhanced tools like ArtLens for Slack and Share Your View to keep art accessible. In 2021, she launched 'Revealing Krishna,' a mixed-reality exhibition that blended digital storytelling with ancient artifacts. Jane's overhaul of CMA’s website integrated AI and real-time analytics, enhancing user experience and accessibility. Holding a BA in Architecture and a combined BS/MS in Applied Mathematics from Columbia University, her background includes spearheading Columbia University's distance education and serving as the virtual CTO for the Great Lakes Science Center, underscoring her profound impact on technology and education in the arts.

Andrew Whalley

Andrew Whalley has played a pivotal role at Grimshaw since its inception, spearheading transformative projects across diverse sectors including education, performing arts, culture, sports, infrastructure, transportation, workplace design, and industrial design. He recently completed  Terra – The Sustainability Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, a groundbreaking net-zero building and the centrepiece of the Expo.
Andrew's dedication to education and academia has been a consistent thread throughout his career. In the UK, he taught at the Royal College of Art Industrial Design Department, led a unit at the Architectural Association and lectured at University College London . Most recently, he concluded his tenure as an Adjunct Professor at Milan’s POLIMI.

His contributions extend to numerous academic publications on topics such as specialist structures, sustainability, smart cities, and urban design. Andrew also serves as an advisor to the UN-affiliated Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization.

In 2011, Andrew was appointed Deputy Chairman of Grimshaw, ascending to Chairman in 2019, succeeding Sir Nicholas Grimshaw. As Chairman, Andrew oversees the practice’s core design ethos, brand identity, and global relationships.

Andrew is a registered architect in the UK and USA, a member of the AIA and RIBA, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Andrea Salazar

Andrea has been a Project Manager and Production Manager for theatre, events, experimental and site-specific artistic projects in London since 2005. She is passionate about transforming disused buildings and unconventional spaces into artistic and immersive experiences for all.

Early in her career, she became the Production Manager for Shunt, pioneers of immersive theatre, who operated a multidisciplinary space in the Victorian arches of London Bridge. There, she helped bring to life some of the most exciting experimental art. Her first encounter with Punchdrunk was at The Drowned Man as Production Manager, since then has continued to bring their visionary work to reality.

In her career, she has realised projects in theatres, outdoor festivals, warehouses, museums, libraries, churches, schools, public toilets, phone boxes and many others.

In 2016, Andrea co-founded Darkfield, a company specializing in immersive storytelling, often transforming shipping containers into portals to extraordinary worlds and presenting work globally. She is deeply invested in audience experience, immersive technology, and the power of creative collaboration.

Ryan Wineinger-Schattl 

As a Senior Creative Director for Walt Disney Imagineering, Ryan generates new ideas and stories for Disney Experiences’ theme parks, resorts, attractions, and cruise ships worldwide. A dream of his since a young age, Ryan is very humbled and grateful for the thrilling challenge of developing one-of-a-kind experiences inspired by Disney’s incredible films and stories. In addition to ideation, Ryan leads multidisciplinary teams through the development and execution of theme park lands, attractions, restaurants, shops, and immersive experiences around the globe. Ryan’s profound belief in the transformational power of immersive storytelling is rooted in its potential for fostering reassurance and communion among strangers. He believes everyone deserves access to the feeling of belonging.

Ryan’s professional development is rooted in theatrical design and new works development, including longer-term opportunities at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center. The theatre arts continue to be his enormous passion to this day.

Kelsey Shell

Kelsey Shell is the Environmental & Sustainability Strategist at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. In this role, she weaves sustainability into the exhibitions and operations of the museum. She initiated MOCA’s Green Team and acts as the liaison to the MOCA Environmental Council, an affinity group that supports museum-wide sustainability initiatives. In concert with the Operations team, she is working to decarbonize MOCA’s campus through infrastructure retrofits and revised energy-use habits. She created the ongoing public programming series MOCA Climate Conversations and the hands-on learning workshop called Sustainable Skillbuilding. She also supports the Curatorial, Production, and Registration teams in imagining more responsibly built exhibitions that foreground climate stories.

Prior to MOCA, Kelsey Shell was the Director of Public Art at Zlot Buell + Associates where she worked on large scale projects with Stanford University, the Dallas Cowboys, and the State of California, among others. She was a founding member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Gallery Climate Coalition and Art + Climate Action, and is a member of the Climate Convening of Los Angeles Museums.

Alex Manresa

Architect and museographer, Alex Manresa has developed over fifty museums and numerous exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and Africa during the last thirty years, collaborating with public institutions, specialized companies, and private clients. He has participated in five World Expos, carrying out various national and thematic pavilions.

Alex’s professional experience covers all the processes related to museography, from concept, design, content, and technical development to production or comprehensive project management.

Currently, he holds the positions of Director of Strategy and U.S. Director at ACCIONA Living & Culture, from which he supports the optimization of work processes in the company, collaborates in the development of international markets, and promotes the establishment of strategic relationships with clients, singular collaborators, and specialized companies.

Michael Kimmelman 

Architecture critic of The New York Times and the founder and editor-at-large of Headway, a small team of journalists focused on large global challenges and paths to progress.

He writes about buildings, housing and homelessness, neighborhoods, cities, environmental issues and civil society.

He started his journalistic career as an editor of a design magazine and as the architecture critic for New England Monthly. He became chief art critic of The Times and later moved to Berlin to create the Abroad column, covering cultural, political and social affairs across Europe and the Middle East. He returned to New York to become the paper’s architecture critic and in 2021 took on a second role at The Times, founding Headway. A native New Yorker, he is the author of several books, twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a graduate of Yale and Harvard, and teaches in the graduate school of architecture at Columbia University.

András Szántó

András Szántó advises museums, foundations, educational institutions, and corporations on cultural strategy and program development, worldwide. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University. A widely published author, his writings have appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, Artnet News, and The Art Newspaper, among other publications. As a consultant, he advises some of the world’s leading cultural institutions and corporate art programs. He has lectured on art business at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art and has directed the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he helped launch and oversee the Global Museum Leaders Colloquium, a series of seminars for museum directors. He is a frequent moderator of the Art Basel Conversations series. Born in Budapest, he has curated exhibitions on Hungarian art of the 1960s and 70s. His most recent books are "The Future of the Museum" (2020) and "Imagining the Future Museum" (2022). He lives in Brooklyn.